Ukritic: Crowdsourcing Platform for Affiliate Marketers

Often times you will see a lot of people looking for ways to make money without a blog. There are in fact a lot of ways to do that, but sometimes, even if we have a blog, there are products that could be interesting to write a review of, but won’t fit within our blog’s topic. When this happens, you either go crazy and use social media platforms to promote them, use article directories, or some other form of promotion that may or may not be as effective.

Social channels are great, but there is often very little room for you to state an opinion, and to be effective, you should be directing users to a specific page to provide them with more information. On the other hand, article directories have the problem of having too much noise, and most of the time, people use it for other purposes, such as for SEO, traffic generation, and other things, which I won’t go into details. In addition most article sites won’t allow you to use your affiliate links.

What if:

You have a place where you can be an affiliate marketer without having to worry about having your own blog?

Market products or services that are unrelated to the topic you are blogging about.

Test the waters on specific products or services before building a site on your own?

You don’t want the hassle of having to maintain your own site, and still be able to write a review with your own affiliate links?

Enter Ukritic. A free place where you can write and share your reviews on just about any product or services you have an experience with. Interesting bit is that you are permitted (encouraged) to add your affiliate link, to direct visitors that are interested in buying the product or service you have just reviewed. In Ukritic’s world, reviews are called “Krit(s)” and the reviewer (the “Kritter”). All krits are user generated, hence why it is a Crowdsourced Platform for affiliate marketers.

Why Should You Consider Using Ukritic?

In addition to the bulleted items mention above, I believe that the concept is quite interesting and unique, because it is good for everyone involved. People nowadays would normally initiate their online shopping by searching for honest and credible reviews. The better a review is “presented” to the potential buyer, the better it will help them make a decision. Every krit has a user generated “voting” system, meaning that people can say anything they want, thumbs up or down your review, etc. The better your ratings, the better your reputation, the likelihood of generating a sale.

For affiliate marketers, having the possibility of earning extra income with quality online content is something new. Note that I mentioned quality, and this is where the founders of Ukritic are very, very strict. Every “krit” is reviewed meticulously. Don’t even attempt to use the platform for SEO, some shady traffic generation scheme, or anything related. Getting caught is grounds for being banned and your earnings forfeited. Yep, no quality – it’s bye, bye for you.

Is Ukritic For You? – The Quality Guidelines.

Here is where I think that Ukritic has an edge. To get your review published, understand that they have strict quality guidelines. They are not a SEO dumping ground, so forget about using the platform for backlinks and all that SEO stuff. Your objective is to write an honest review and include affiliate links (the “Go” button in the image below is an aff link).

Abide by their guidelines and not only will you get positive ratings from other users, you will be on Ukritic’s good graces. If you are not able to write honest reviews, then I am telling you right now, that it is probably just a waste of your time. Ukritic’s review pages are fully interactive and allow for other users/consumers to add their own opinion and rate them accordingly. Such feedback will reflect directly on your credibility and reputation.

The Kritter’s Interface

After signing up, the first thing you will see are tools and tutorials to help you make the most of the platform, as well as some guides on how to write excellent reviews. Ukritic has a very simple intuitive platform to help you publish professional, interactive and media-rich product reviews that will truly impact visitors with your story. You can add images, videos, choose different layouts, etc. All within a few clicks.

Fast forward to actually getting started, you are presented with a step-by-step interface that will help you write your “krit”, define if you will use images, videos, etc. and then add your affiliate link in the proper box. Next steps will be to write the review and do your final editing. Here’s an example of the part where you add your affiliate link:

What Product Should You Review?

The best products or services that you should be doing a review of, are the ones that you have a personal experience with, and preferably, those that shoppers are actively searching for. By far, it is the best way to give an honest opinion, regardless whether it is good or bad. The idea is to build your credibility and reputation, so be honest and if need be, write another “krit” of the ones you actually recommend and link to it. If you consistently do things this way, you will gain trust and people will most likely buy from your recommendations, (with your affiliate links).

Some people say that it is sometimes difficult to find a product to review. For the purpose of using Ukritic, here’s a quick tip.

Where are you right now? In your office, living room, by the pool? Look around you. What do you see? Chances are, you got a bunch of products right in front of you that you can easily write a review about. What have purchased recently? A premium theme, a plugin, an ebook? Do you have a camera, an iPod, a new garden set, TV, something in your kitchen perhaps :). As I said, these are all products that you have a hands on experience with, and while you won’t be writing about it on your blog (if you have one), Ukritic may just be a good place for you say something about it and within the process earn some money. Just make sure that the product or service you are going to write about is available in one of the networks you are affiliated with.

Disadvantages

Ukritic is still in its early stages and its success will depend very much on how many users it can attract, and most importantly, their ability to filter out good from crap, consistently. Don’t expect to makes tons of money right away and stay passive about it. You should still work to promote your review to generate traffic to your pages.

Conclusion

The bottom line is that Ukritic’s main objective is to provide a professional user-generated review platform and differentiate itself from other platforms that does nothing but amass content, regardless of its quality. For that purpose, they provide real publishing incentives and are looking to further improve their platform, in the near future. Examples of these are, integrating affiliate networks directly into their system, and possible ad rev sharing.

I know that many of you prefer to write reviews in your own blogs or websites, and that is totally understandable. However, as I mentioned earlier, there are many ways you can take advantage of this platform and as usual, it only depends on you whether you are interested in taking it for test drive. It’s a free platform and there is nothing to loose.

Anyway, here’s some good news for you. Ukritic is holding a contest that will start on May 1st and end on May 15th. The prize of $1,000 for the best review is up for grabs. All info can be found on their website.

That’s it! What do you think of Ukritic’s concept? Is this something you think will benefit you? Share you thoughts.

I own some blogs and manage others. I have never thought of doing affiliate-marketing. Maybe it is time for me to start. I will try to use Ukritic because it seems likely that the comments I might receive will lead me to excel there.
Thank you!
It is nice to see that bloggers suggest us new ways of increasing our income.

Hi Sanjeev. I agree, the concept is quite interesting and the whole success of it will not only depend on the “crowd” that they can bring on board, but most importantly the quality of reviews that are published..